Lloyd's Maritime and Commercial Law Quarterly
Settlement of the law of the sea disputes and the insurance industry
P.Chandrasekhara Rao *
Not much has been written on the subject of this paper. It is virtually an unexplored area. Ex facie,
it may appear that the subject is beyond the realm of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, for it does not generally deal with the role of the insurance sector in its multifarious provisions. Article 235 of the Convention, however, underlines the need for developing procedures for payment of adequate compensation, such as compulsory insurance or compensation funds, in connection with damage caused by polluting the marine environment.
Before I proceed to deal with this topic, I propose to give you a brief account of its background.
The importance of oceans and seas to mankind cannot be over-estimated. They constitute the major part of the planet that supports life, drive the climate and hydrological cycle, provide economic prosperity, ensure food security, and conserve marine biological diversity and its intrinsic value for maintaining the conditions that support life on earth.
The Convention
The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea was signed at Montego Bay, Jamaica, on 10 December 1982. It entered into force 12 years later, in 1994. A subsequent Agreement relating to the implementation of Part XI of the Convention was adopted on 28 July 1994 and entered into force on 28 July 1996. This Agreement and Part XI of the Convention are to be interpreted and applied together as a single instrument. As of now, there are 133 States Parties to the Convention and 97 States Parties to the Agreement. In this paper, the Convention and the Agreement will together be referred to as “the Convention”. It is hoped that the goal of universal participation in the Convention would soon be achieved.
The Convention is of fundamental importance for the maintenance and strengthening of international peace and security as well as for the sustainable use and development of the seas and oceans and their resources. It embodies a comprehensive constitution for the oceans. It contains, among other things, provisions relating to the territorial sea, the contiguous zone, the continental shelf, the exclusive economic zone and the high seas. It provides, importantly, for the protection and preservation of the marine environment, for marine scientific research and for the development and transfer of marine technology. One of the most important parts of the Convention concerns the exploitation of the resources
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